Hard Reset
by Kumoma
Summary: This is the personal journal of Aria, someone living her ideal life until she finds herself caught up in events that are very nearly too much to cope with. Rising international tensions, a two hour long war and 210 years of stasis find her coming to terms with that her whole world has been reset. Not that it's entirely bad, mind you.
1. Prologue

_"What the hell is this, anyway?"_

It feels strange to have the first chapter of a new story be nothing but a very long author's note but I couldn't think of a better way to go about it. I might just be overthinking it but, since this is going to be something that's a bit different for me, I expect that the question will come up from time to time. Assuming that I'm right, I figure that it's best to address the matter once now rather than every time later. It's important to do it that way mostly because it's a long story. As long as I'm at it, I can give a little background, something that will likely be useful as this isn't the kind of story where I can cleanly work it all into the story itself. If interested, settle in and we'll get into this. If you'd rather skip it, though, the first real chapter should already be up.

Essentially, this is a roleplay journal. The long story always comes in when I tell someone that I'm posting in my roleplay journal and they either don't know what that is or, more often, they can guess based on the name and just can't figure out why I'm doing it. What is pretty simple: It's exactly what it sounds like it is. Open world games like Fallout 4 make for a world of opportunities to roleplay, something that I'm nearly always looking for an excuse to do. My roleplay journals are really just the story of everything that my character has experienced along the way.

Answering the question of why I do it, on the other hand, is a little more complicated. Putting aside the fact that I'm just plain weird, the problem is that a single playthrough of a game with a scope like this can take hundreds of hours if you stretch it out (which is always my intent when I sit down to start playing). Adding to the issue is the fact that mods only increase the amount of time it can take to finish a playthrough. A running gag among people that know me centers around just how bad I can be about never actually finishing games like this. The thing I'm reminded of most often is the fact that I've put over 1,200 hours into Skyrim and have never gotten far enough in the main quest to finish learning the first shout. (Even when the game first came out, I only got as far as the quest to retrieve the horn of Jurgen Windcaller before completely forgetting about saving the world.)

It isn't that I'm uninterested in the main story; I'm just more interested in the world in which it takes place. In both Skyrim and Fallout, the world is so full of people with their own stories that I want to experience all of it. I'm so interested, in fact, that I like the idea of being just another part of the world more than being the hero of my own story. Quite possibly my favorite mod for Skyrim was You Are Not the Dragonborn, my first and best opportunity to do exactly that without constantly having the game remind me that it isn't true. Its most fierce competition comes from Requiem, which removes all of the gameplay balancing that makes you feel like you're a god amongst men. This is my idea of a perfect game. I still like the main stories of these games and I may eventually embrace the idea of being a legendary hero but, before that, I want to feel as though I've earned it by being a normal person that gradually got stronger rather than just having been thrust into the role because it was my destiny or that it was just an inevitable conclusion because I'm somehow inherently better than everyone else. It lets me build characters with their own lives and histories. Their pasts define who they are when the game starts and their interactions with other people and the world shape who they become as the game's story progresses. I can play as a character that I actually care about on a personal level rather than as someone that already has a story and a destiny, which feels more like watching a story play out. It isn't that don't enjoy that—my library of visual novels is proof—but the opportunity to put myself into a character that I've built and feel as though I'm truly in control of the story is relatively rare.

With daily obligations, a desire to play other games and my notoriously short attention span, when I start a game this long I eventually have to leave it for anything from a matter of days to a matter of months. It was always a problem for me that I would invest all of this time and energy into building a character and establishing their place in the world just to end up leaving the game. By the time I got back to it, I would usually have forgotten nearly everything about the world and my character's story. I couldn't remember my character's friends, experiences or even the things that motivated their actions. Trying to get back into the game felt like experiencing any other story where I was seeing through the eyes of a character that someone else had created. In the end, I'd have to start over from the beginning with a new playthrough. I openly admit that I get attached to my characters; even though I love making new characters, having to abandon one is always heartbreaking. It eventually occurred to me that if I kept a journal—something common for NPCs in both Elder Scrolls and Fallout games to add to the story—I could just read it and get back to where I was when I left off. I've got far more interest in carrying on with the game than writing about it later (which usually takes at least an hour for even brief summaries), so these entries aren't always detailed. Still, it's enough to remind me of what my character was doing, thinking and feeling and get me back into the story, even after a long hiatus.

All of that brings me to exactly what this story is. It's a collection of those journal entries that one of my characters has written since a bit before the beginning of Fallout 4. I'm going back and adding to them, partially so that it reads like a story as much as a journal but mostly to flesh out the entries that are mostly summaries. I'm hoping that it will tell the character's story and, at the same time, show the thoughts and feelings behind the decisions being made. Also, as a sucker for the lore of worlds this expansive, it's a perfect opportunity to finally put my knowledge of that lore to use by working it into the story. In addition to all of that, I'm hoping to make some things about the story feel a bit more realistic. I aim for as much realism as possible and there is no end of things that happen in the game that can outright kill my immersion if I take notice of them. One of the best examples is the building system as a whole, allowing you to build things like generators and turrets in an instant out of random scrap. I'm not complaining about these things, exactly; they were necessary for gameplay balance. Still, it was a problem for the way that I play and, lacking mods to fix the problem, I came up with a solution of my own. Instead of just trying to ignore it (which never works), I instead started working explanations for these things into my entries. It was a quick and easy way to get my mind off of whatever it was that was starting to bug me and back into either the game or the writing. It was also an excuse to write more, something that I'm not in the habit of turning down. Doing this also led me to start working in explanations for the perks that I'd take, which I suppose was a natural progression. Even something as simple and mundane as selecting perks is something that I do with my characters' thoughts and motivations in mind rather than thinking of it purely as a gameplay mechanic. They make an effort to get better at what they do because it's necessary, desired or just a consequence of the things that have happened to them.

Now that all of this has been properly explained (at least, I hope it has been), on to this character's story specifically. The story will follow Aria, my character from a relatively recent playthrough of Fallout 4. It follows the canon beginning to Fallout 4...sort of. I suppose that it would be more accurate to say that it runs alongside it for the most part. The most important thing to take from that is that she is most decidedly not Nora. In fact, I actually removed Nora from this playthrough entirely as I actually like Nora and the character I replaced her with isn't exactly likable. Aria is a character that I created myself and, that being the case, I had to write her into the story in what I'm hoping is a realistic and interesting way. She's going to be going through the game's main story (which is frustratingly more difficult to avoid than in other Bethesda games), though the fact that she's a character that I've written in means that her reasons for doing what she does are going to be a bit different than Nora's no matter what dialogue option I've chosen in the game.

The journal entries that will make up the story's chapters are all written by Aria. There's likely going to be a bit of a disconnect from normal journal entries as much as from normal story telling; in the interest of prioritizing presenting a story over presenting a normal journal, her entries are likely going to be a bit more descriptive than any normal person's would be in this situation...or just about any other situation that I can think of, for that matter. If this story ends up being like others that I've written, each chapter will be about eight hours of continuous writing and editing. While I'm going to be aiming to make these chapters shorter than what I usually write for the sake of realism, I know myself well enough to know to expect to fail at it from time to time. I can't imagine that many people would take eight hours out of each day just to sit down and write about what happened in the other sixteen, especially if close to half of those sixteen hours were spent sleeping. That's just an unfortunate consequence of the fact that I'm trying to tell a story through journal entries and trying to not miss anything significant or interesting that happened each day. While there's probably a good way to do this that has already been discovered, I can't say that I know what it might be. I've never tried writing a story purely through journal entries before so I'm looking at this as a learning experience as much anything else.

So, who is Aria, anyway? Most of that will become clear as the story progresses. For now, I'm just going to stick to a few things won't be obvious because of the changes that I made to work Aria into the game's story. Aria is an old friend of Nate's that grew up with him in Boston. Though they remained close, she has long since left Boston behind without ever looking back. She headed to the Southwest Commonwealth to start college in Los Angeles after high school and, after graduation, she moved north to Portland to begin a career as a freelance software developer. Firmly established in what she now considers her home, it wasn't until she got a call from Nate in a time of crisis that she ever considered moving back to Boston. Her journal entries begin immediately following that call from Nate in late February of 2077, eight months before the The Great War.

Aria begins writing about her experiences as a means of coping with them long enough to sort out her thoughts, something that she generally has trouble doing. She writes the way she thinks and doesn't worry about how the words come out or how they look on her screen; she just puts it out there before she can get sidetracked or find an excuse to not do it. The only important thing to her is to get it written down somehow. She writes as if she's talking to someone, something that makes it easy to say what she has to say without actually having to talk to anyone. Once that's done, she can go back and look at it as if she's reading something that someone else has written. It makes it easier to make sense of her thoughts when she can distance herself from them, whether she's putting them out there or reading them later.

I think that's more than enough exposition...actually, it's probably a little too much. I was tempted to write more but that would just be taking the lazy way around properly working it into the story itself. Speaking of the story, it's about time to get on with it.


	2. 19 February 2077, 16:38

I don't even know if I've got enough daytripper to get through this.

It's been years since I sat in front of a terminal with the intent to write a journal entry. When I think about how hard it is to do it right now, it's almost funny to remember that I once filled up an entire holotape with journal entries. For me, though, writing is something that means that shit just went all kinds of wrong. The fact that I used to do it every day just shows how bad things were at the time. It got me through back then but now it's just a reminder that there's a problem that I don't know how to deal with. It was at some point in college that I got out of the habit. It felt good. It was like finally taking the training wheels off of a bike; I was finally able to get through a day without it. All I had to worry about in college was remembering to show up to class and keeping the campus police and my dealer from meeting.

I shouldn't complain about the journal, though. The fact that I even thought about writing in it again shows that it works...and that I need it. It makes sense that it was Nate's idea. Somewhere back in middle school, he'd told me that he'd heard somewhere that it could help people with my "condition" to keep their thoughts straight. As much of a mess as I am right now, I can still laugh about how he always tiptoed around calling me a neurotic wreck, even then. My mother always said that I never deserved to have someone like him around. I never gave her the satisfaction of letting her hear me say it but it's probably the only thing that we ever agreed on.

No, fuck her. Back to Nate.

I don't think he had any idea how writing in a journal was supposed to keep me from constantly cutting class and smoking like a chimney. Really, it was just one in a long string of ideas of his to help me get through the day. I was always in trouble for some damn thing or another and he hated seeing it happen. That's why I think that he was just desperate for a solution was throwing everything at the wall to see what would stick...or, at least, as much as he thought he could without running the risk pissing me off. He knew me well enough to know that the one thing that I hated more than anything else was having people constantly trying to fix me. I got enough of that before I could get out of the door in the morning to go to school, assuming that I was actually going. I really should've told him at the time that I knew that he was just trying to help. I probably would've if I'd had any idea how.

He tried plenty of times before and after but his journal idea was the one that actually helped. It never stopped me from doing what I was doing—come to think of it, I picked up far worse habits as the years went by—but writing about it helped. It always kept me from completely losing it, even when I was sure that it was coming. I've been a train wreck in motion for as long as I can remember but I always managed to keep it together just enough to keep from being written off as a total loss. Things fly through my head faster than I can catch them and only the worst ones come around enough for me to be able to remember them. Being able to write it all down helped me sort it out enough to keep from making that one mistake that ended up being the last straw. It was enough to get me through middle school and high school, which was the only way that I managed to get into a college on the other side of the country. If it hadn't been for that, things never would've gotten better. I can trace all of it back to the journal.

I haven't told him to this day how much I owe him—and not just for the journal thing. He's the only one that's ever been on my side. He never did miss an opportunity to prove that I could lean on him when I needed to. It's just as well that I never told him, though; he'd never accept the credit. That's not why today went the way it did, though. I didn't agree to this because I felt like I owed it to him. It wasn't until I started writing all of this down that it occurred to me that I do, in fact, owe this to him. I agreed to it because I hate seeing him in a bad way as much as he always hated seeing me in the same state. Hell, it was my idea. It took me a good ten minutes to get him to agree to it. I'm still waiting for him to call me back to call the whole thing off because he's decided that he's got it under control.

I should back up a bit.

Nate called me a little while ago because he needed someone to talk to. It made me forget about whatever it was that I was doing at the time. I don't like admitting it to myself but it shook me. I've known him since I was six years old and he's never told me that he needed anything from me, even when he did. He was always the one to rely on, like it was his role in life to be the binding that kept me from falling apart. Hearing him asking for help now sure as hell got my attention, even if he just needed me to listen to him. I've seen him go through bad and worse and couldn't even guess at what would have changed his mind today. I just knew it had to be a catastrophe. It didn't even sound like him on the phone; he's always been the loud and clear type that let you know from the beginning that a lack of self-confidence wasn't one of his shortcomings. Enlisting only made him louder, which I didn't even know was possible. Today, though, I could barely even hear him. He sounded...defeated. I don't really have a better word for it. It was like something had finally come along and broken him.

No, not like. Something did break him. Carrie left him.

I saw it coming before they ever got married. I only ever said anything to him once, though. When he first told me that he was planning on proposing to her, I did my best to gently put it that she was a lying whore and couldn't be trusted to get all the way to work in the morning without fucking somebody behind his back. Well, I did my best to put it gently, at least. He just laughed it off. He said that he wasn't under any illusions that it wasn't going to be easy but he was sure that they could make it work. He was as sure about it as he was about everything. It pissed me off that he wasn't taking it seriously but it made it easy to convince myself that I was just worrying too much and he would know better than I did what kind of person she really was. It sure as hell made it easier to be in his wedding without choking her out at the altar. Besides, it's not like I spent any more time around her than I had to, so it was certainly possible that knew her better than I did.

To Nate's credit, he was right for a while. He enlisted after high school and, taking up the role of the happy housewife, it looked like she was keeping her legs closed while he was gone. I wouldn't really know; I crossed the stage with my diploma and got on the next flight headed west to start college. No bullshit. I actually went straight from the ceremony to the airport. I didn't even stick around for any of the parties. He stayed back in Columbia long enough to finish basic training and then walked down the aisle. Something about her wanting a military wedding. It seemed like it was going well enough. He didn't have any complaints about her back then, at least. Believing that it was all working out somehow kept me from heading back to Boston long enough to put a foot up her ass, so I didn't question it. The few times I talked to her, she seemed like she was actually happy. She always had an eye for anything that cost enough and, when Nate started getting shipped out of the country, getting to follow him around the world was the kind of thing that she could brag to her friends about, secure in the knowledge that they couldn't afford to see what she was seeing for themselves. It still seemed off to me but, since they were both happy, it was easy to not think about it much. As long as Nate was happy, that was good enough for me.

It didn't start looking like anything was off until he got sent to Anchorage. He couldn't take any excess baggage with him, so that was the end of Carrie's seeing the world and calling her friends to tell them what they were missing. On top of that, she was pregnant. I don't think that either one of them knew how it happened. Nate always wanted kids but Carrie always talked about pregnancy like it was The New Plague. It's probably the only thing that I can't really fault her for; I'm not looking for that kind of responsibility, either. That's where the similarities end, though. Nate always told me that she kept saying that she didn't want to have kids while he was getting deployed at a moment's notice, which made sense. Just enough, in fact, to keep stringing him along and making him think that it was going to happen one day. I fought myself at least a few times a week to keep from trying to talk some sense into him. He was actually talking about cutting his career short just to get his family started. I never really understood it but he loved what he did—enough to get halfway to retirement. Just thinking about giving it up was killing him.

Nate actually seemed relieved about it once he found out that he had a kid on the way, though. Knowing him, it meant that ending his career was something that he had to do instead of something that he was choosing to do since that was the deal from the beginning. Carrie was another matter, though. I never really admitted it to myself but I could tell from the way he talked about how she was acting that she was already on her way out of the door. He said that she acted like she didn't want him anywhere near her half of the time and all she ever wanted to talk about was how things used to be when she was seeing the world at the government's expense. He always tried to shrug it off and chalk it up to hormones but I know for a fact that he knew something was wrong. He didn't even bother hiding that he'd noticed that she never talked about the future anymore. Her head was in the past from the minute she took that pregnancy test.

Nate kept his word, just not the way that he wanted to. He took a bullet a few months ago that did some nerve damage, which meant that he was coming home, anyway. Truth be told, I was relieved...and I still am. I never wanted to worry him by letting him know that I was worried about him but it was always hard to not think about the fact that he enlisted six months before the country declared war on China. I guess he used up all of his luck getting shipped around the world on glorified errands for ten years before he caught that bullet. I'm actually thankful for that bullet since it didn't kill him. It fucked him up in some ways, sure, but he can still function about as well as he ever could. He gets honorably discharged and, at the same time, he won't go into combat anymore even if he had decided to stay in the army. On top of that, he got out before the Chinese got driven out of Anchorage. If it wasn't for that, could've been one of the ones that got sent in to deal with the food riots. I know for a fact that he would've deserted before he fired on Americans, especially for no better reason than because they were hungry. The only bad thing to come out of it is that Shaun beat him to Boston.

Carrie was the only one that didn't seem to care that he was home and mostly in one piece. Knowing what I know now, I know that she was out of excuses to put off the whole family thing. On top of that, she wasn't getting to travel the world for free anymore. Nate didn't bother trying to find a desk job and got out to go back to work. I doubt she missed the fact that it was only because of what she told him about having kids. Seeing the world is the only thing that I can think of that kept her around, anyway; I never heard her talk about anything else that actually made her happy. Nate was home but she acted like she couldn't stand him. On top of that, they had Shaun and I know for a fact that she didn't want him around. Thinking about it now, I'm surprised that she held out with the whole family life for a whole two months.

I can't even guess where she is now and if Nate knows, he didn't say. It's not like I'm going to ask him. It doesn't matter, anyway. All he said was that he was at work and got a call from a daycare that said that Shaun was there. He had been dropped off that morning and nobody had come to pick him up yet. While he was in the middle of trying to figure out why the fuck he was at a daycare instead of at home with his mother, he got home to find that half of their apartment had been cleaned out. She didn't leave him as much as a Dear John letter. Their bank accounts looked worse than their apartment; every account had been emptied and two of their credit cards had been damn near maxed out. Bitch didn't even leave her wedding band behind.

Shit. The daytripper is starting to wear off. Either that or I finally caught up to it.

That was the situation when he called me. All I could do was listen while he told me what happened and what he knew. It's a good thing that he was in the mood to talk; I sure as hell didn't know what to say to him. Besides, I know that he needed to get it out. It got quiet after that though. It made my insides go cold. I've never known him to be at a loss for words, no matter how bad things got. He always has a plan or an idea or something to say about what to do next. This is too much for him, though. His wife left him after he'd just left ten years worth of career behind for her and now he had a kid that he had no idea how to take care of alone while he was in the middle of learning how to be a civilian with a normal day job for the first time since high school. I knew it from the way that he was just quiet, like he was waiting for a solution to fall out of the sky. He'd never say that he needed help, even if he knew it. I don't even know if the thought has ever occurred to him before. I knew it, though, which was enough of a reason for me to give him some help, even if it was a terrible idea.

I told him that I was going to wire him some money. I cut him off before he could finish refusing it and then told him that I was going to wrap up a few things before I got on a plane and headed his way. I know next to nothing about taking care of an infant and even less about keeping one from growing up and ending up like me. I know it's not a one-man job, though. Hell, I should be bringing a whole fucking village with me if I'm going to get it right. All I can do is what I can do, though. What I can do is give him what I've got. Even if I can't do anything other than change diapers and give him a shoulder to cry on, I can do it. The only problem is that it means going back to Boston.

I can't deal with that yet. I need to call my dealer first. My daytripper definitely just wore off and I'm out.


	3. 21 February 2077, 05:13

I can remember yesterday that I was intending to start today by getting a head start on outrunning my thoughts. It was a good plan but I fucked up on the execution. I could tell when I woke up that something went wrong yesterday just by the time; I never get up this early in the morning unless something bad enough happened the day before for me to do something to make me pass out soon enough to be in bed on time. In the middle of trying to remember what happened, I fucked up and...actually remembered what happened. Everything that I was thinking yesterday caught up to me before I could get out of bed. With no chems or liquor in my system to soften the blow, it didn't take long for me to come running back to the journal. I was hoping that I could treat the last entry like a one-more-time with an ex that gets lucky and catches you in a moment of weakness. I figured that it wouldn't be anything that having a glass of wine for breakfast and knowing better next time wouldn't fix. Unfortunately, this isn't a matter of not knowing better and the wine is going to take a while to start doing me any good. I had to swallow my pride and try to remember my ex's number. In this case, my ex's password.

Yesterday passed by in a blur. I remember it for the most part—I'm never that far gone—but it's pretty hazy. I only have one client at the moment and I'm pretty far ahead of schedule on my work so I decided to give myself the day off. It's not like I was going to get any work done, anyway. I told myself that I would spend the day getting started on planning the move to Boston but I knew when I said it that it wasn't going to happen. I know that it's got to get done but I'm nowhere near ready to start dealing with the details. Hell, I can't even think about it in a general sense yet. In the end, all I've got to show for yesterday is a couple of empty slots in my wine rack and a dent in my bank account after getting in touch with my dealer.

It's been a while since I asked him for anything other than the usual but I knew when I called him that daytripper alone wasn't going to cut it this time. Sometimes things go worse than usual and I just need something a bit stronger around. I don't always use it; it just feels good to have it around just in case. He looked at me like he was looking at a rabbit caught in a trap when I went to pick up the daytripper and a small emergency supply of Med-X. Lucky for both of us, he had some and sold it to me without saying anything. I know what he was thinking, though. Getting people to start upgrading their orders is how he makes a living. It pisses me off that he thinks that he's got me pegged but I can't really blame him for trying to make a living, either. Besides, the last thing I need to do is let my temper burn that bridge and end up having to find a new dealer. Not that it matters much since I'm going to have to find a new one when I get to Boston, anyway.

I'd better take a step back...one problem at a time.

The only thing I remember clearly from yesterday is waiting for my phone to ring. Well, it did but it just pissed me off every time it wasn't Nate. I don't like hearing my phone ring at the best of times; every time I saw a call from a business contact or someone that I don't even know, it felt like they were just taunting me. I usually don't even bother having the ringer on; I just respond to messages when I feel like I can deal with it. This time, though, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and I didn't want to drag it out. It felt like it was just a matter of time before he called me to tell me that he would be fine in spite of the fact that we both know that he wouldn't.

It's been years since it happened last but I've had that conversation with him too many times to not know how it would go. It's happened the same way every time since he was too nervous to find himself a date to the seventh grade dance. I'd be spending at least an hour convincing him that I was right, logically proving that he needed the help. After I stated my case, he'd deny it anyway without giving a reason why and then I'd get pissed off and tell him that I was doing it whether he wanted me to or not. He'd laugh and give in and we'd both pretend that I didn't just hear him breathe a sigh of relief. No matter how bad he needs or wants something, he won't take help unless he feels like he doesn't have any other choice. It worries me that it didn't go that way because it shows just how wrong things are. When I checked my account and saw that the money that I'd transferred to him had been accepted, I couldn't do anything but stare at the screen. No phone call, no argument. That was when I stopped waiting and turned the phone's ringer back off. At least he should be breathing a little easier.

I can vaguely remember spending time trying to prepare for the call—at least, until I saw that the transfer had gone through. I'd lined up a list of reasons as long as my arm to prove that he needed some help. To be honest, I don't even care if it's me that's helping him; going to his parents would actually make more sense. They're a long way from broke and actually have some idea of how to go about raising a kid. He'd never do it, though. He was always the good boy, the dependable one that they never had to worry about. He never bragged about it but I know that he always liked that about himself. There's no way in hell that he'd even tell them what happened until he already had a handle on the situation. There's no telling how long that would take, though. How much would he have to hurt until then? I'm not about to sit by and let that happen. I can't do anywhere near as much for him as his parents could but at least I can make him let me be there for him, even if I have to twist his arm. Literally, if it comes to it. It wouldn't be the first time. Not that I don't know that he could tie me in a knot if he ever really wanted to; he just always lets me win and I don't mind using that against him for something this important.

I don't doubt at all that he could eventually manage to sort things out on his own. Even if this situation is an unprecedented level of fucked up, he always comes up with a way. How in the hell would he do it, though? What kinds of sacrifices would he have to make? I don't know much about dealing with kids but I know enough to not want one of my own. Even with a daycare to take care of Shaun while he's at work, how would he be able to work all day and still be able to take care of an infant all night? Hell, it's hard enough to get by these days if you're just trying to take care of yourself. Just doing the grocery shopping means taking the day off from work now. The food riots haven't been happening as often but that just means longer lines on the days that the trucks show up now that everybody is getting in line instead of running the risk of getting shot. The only options left now are to get in line the night before or run the risk of getting to the front of the line just to find out that they're already out. I've heard that it's a little better back east but it can't be by much, assuming that it's true at all. That's just something that I've heard around here and people always want to believe that somebody else's grass is greener—especially when things are bad on your own lawn.

To be fair, saying that life is hard could just be my own opinion. I'm only functional in the sense of a dictionary definition. I'm no expert on the matter outside of the fact that I haven't overdosed or starved to death yet. It's not like I have trouble holding down a job or anything but it takes more than a little daytripper just to get me through the day sometimes. I can't even remember the last time I woke up before ten in the morning unless it was entirely by mistake. The best that I ever manage is not letting my vices keep me from paying my bills or building up my savings. As long as I'm being honest, though, it's probably worth mentioning that I can only say that because calling my dealer and heading to the liquor store are just about the only things I do for fun that really cost any money. I don't have any idea how the whole nuclear family and white picket fence thing is supposed to work. I always assumed that it was more of an aspiration than a reality. It's what Nate has always wanted, though. In high school, he was that model student that was planning out his entire life before any of it could happen. Having a happy wife, happy kids and a happy life was always a part of that plan. There's no way that he'd give up on it, even now. His best and worst quality is that he's not the quitting type.

I'm not getting cold feet or anything. I've already made up my mind. It's a hell of a job that I just signed up for, though. I don't even know if I can do it...I don't know if I can do it well, at least. I can be a warm body taking up space just fine but being anything like a parental figure only gets more ridiculous the more I think about it. I'm sure as hell not fit to be responsible for anybody that can't take care of themselves and it's not like I have a frame of reference to work from. I figure that I'll just be there to take on enough of the load for Nate to get back on his feet. I can do housework just fine and I assume that I can even feed Shaun and change diapers once I learn how. I can still run my business in Boston, too, so I can help with the bills until Nate can make up the money that Carrie ran off with. I figure that alone will put him in a better position than he was in with her there. If I can just do my best and not fuck it all up somewhere along the way, this should work.

Thinking about what bothers me, doing my best is nothing compared to going back there to do it. If I thought that there was a way to convince him to come out here, I would barely even be worried about it. I'd be too busy worrying about Nate to wonder whether or not I'd end up making his life worse by mistake. Besides, he'd be there to make sure I don't do too much damage like he always is. I guess that's where my own problem starts and why I don't want to have to convince Nate to go along with this again. That conversation would be an hour of declaring my intent to go back to Boston. It's a thought that hadn't occurred to me since I got on that plane after graduation but saying the words to Nate means that it's an inevitability that


	4. 21 February 2077, 06:51

I'm glad that I thought ahead and got the Med-X when I had the chance. My dealer doesn't do rush orders.

I may as well have been sober for all the good the wine did me when I was writing that last entry. When reality finally caught up to me, I couldn't even keep the wine down. Even if I took it then, daytripper would've bounced right off of me. Med-X is different. Everything feels nice and still now. I'm just kind of...floating. It's like all of the best parts of the best day of my life all wrapped up in one little syringe. Simple, effective, convenient. The world comes to a stop and starts over. When it does, everything feels like it's working the way it's supposed to. It's like a hard reset for my whole life. I can just sit in my apartment in my own little corner of the world and keep the rest of it locked out. My day is perfect and nothing can get in to fuck it up.

The only thing I ever have to worry about is when I start having a problem saying no. I can usually do fine as long as I don't make a habit of it. It's not often that things get that bad these days, anyway. I've been dope sick once before but that was before I learned how to handle it. Besides, it wasn't anything that I can't handle with a few doses of Fixer. The only downside is that the Fixer leaves you feeling just as sick while you're on it...well, that and the price. There must be gold dust in that shit for what it costs. I've only ever let that happen the one time, though. I've been careful about it ever since. All I ever need is enough Med-X to get through two days. That always buys me the time to figure out how to either fix my problem or, at the very least, get used to thinking about it without panicking. If I find a solution, I just have to write it down in case I forget it. When I don't need it anymore, I let it go. It's not always easy but thinking about how much it's going to cost me to spend the next few days sitting next to my just-in-case bucket is always enough to take it from difficult to manageable.

Well, I suppose that there's one other downside. I can't really think as clearly as I can with daytripper. I can function for the most part, assuming that I don't have anything particularly important to do, at least. I wouldn't waste my time trying to get any work done while the Med-X is working. It's a good thing that I don't have to. I gave myself another day off. I can almost laugh again when I remember how many of my professors kept telling me how much more money I could make working for a company than I could going into business for myself. I don't need more when I have enough. This is enough. I never really think about it but I'm actually kind of happy these days. No way in hell I could say that if I was getting ready to head to the office right now.

I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't worried about what I'm going to do when I get to Boston. Nate seems like an endless source of patience and understanding but having chems around his kid is pushing it. I don't discuss what I use with him but I don't go too far out of my way to hide it, either. I never told him about the Med-X if only to keep him from worrying about me but I found out about daytripper in tenth grade. He never liked it but, since I always had a handle on it, he never fought me on it, either. Not that it matters; I wouldn't put him in that kind of a position in the first place. He has to know that, too. He would've told me flat out that he didn't want a junkie in his house if he thought that he couldn't trust me to know better.

I never liked to think of myself as someone that actually needs the chems to function; I doubt that anybody that likes to think of themselves as a junkie. Still, it is what it is. I know what I am and how I am. It makes it easy to not worry about it when I know it works. What I don't know is how to live any other way. It took me years to find something that worked for me but I found it. It works for me, not for somebody else that's trying to sell me a new lifestyle and telling me that I'm going to hell if I don't do it their way. I'm not ready to give it up yet. I will because there's something more important at stake...but I'm not ready. I have no idea how long I'm going to be in Boston. Until Nate rebuilds his savings? Until Shaun doesn't need a babysitter? Until Nate says he's okay? No, he'd say that now if I called him. I need to be sure that he's alright before I even think about leaving. That could be years, decades or never.

I have a life here. I can't honestly say that I've ever had that before I came to Portland. I lived in Boston but that's really only a technicality. I breathed and walked around but I haven't considered that a life since I was old enough to start questioning my own existence. When I was younger, I just knew that something was off. I knew that the way that things went in my house was dramatically different from the way that they went in other kids' houses. When I got older and figured out what it was that was wrong, it really only got worse. That's when I turned my eyes to the future...for the most part, anyway. It took me a long time to break the habit of dwelling on the past and what could've been and what might still be. I eventually learned my lesson about waiting for people to change somewhere around the tenth grade, though. It wasn't easy to come to terms with it but having something to look forward to made it manageable. It made it easier to start showing up to classes, too; I knew that it was my only way out. School was never hard as long as I was there for the exams. I just had to remember to take them and turn in homework once in a while. It was a pain in the ass but it was only a matter of time before it paid off. When I graduated high school, I didn't cross that stage to get my diploma or to go to college. I crossed that stage because I saw a way out on the other side. I didn't know anything about where I was headed but the name but it never once occurred to me to not go. Even if it wasn't better, it couldn't possibly be worse.

"Anywhere but here" was the only thought I had for years. When I walked off of that stage, I was free. I didn't as much as make a phone call to Boston after that to anybody other than Nate. I never thought about it before now but I think that's what Med-X reminds me of—that was the first time I had a chance to start over. College was a completely new experience to me. So was going to work for the first time. Getting my own apartment was the next new thing. By the time I ran out of new experiences to have, I was already established. I had a home, a career and, on occasion, a reason to get up in the morning. I didn't have to be hurt or afraid anymore and, if I ever am for some reason, the solution is never further away than my medicine cabinet. I know it's not normal and I never really planned for it to happen this way but I don't have any complaints. I never really thought about it much before now but I'm okay with how things are. Now I'm getting ready to throw all of that away. How do I go back to not living on my own terms? I guess that's why I can't think about going back to Boston without having a panic attack when I'm sober. When I think about it, there's not actually anything about Boston that I don't like outside of what it represents. Going back feels like volunteering to go to prison and throwing away my own key.

Something tells me that I'd be in bad shape right now if I wasn't high.

The Med-X is definitely working but it still hurts if I think about things too much—sort of. It's not like when I'm sober and it feels almost like actual physical pain. It's just something that I know is there. It's like knowing about the war; I knew it was happening and what it might eventually mean but, at the same time, it was all the way up in Alaska. It wasn't like I saw it when I looked out of my window; it was just a bad thing that was there. That's what makes Med-X beautiful. Somewhere in my head, I know that I probably should deal with things but, at the same time, it can wait if it has to. I can get to it when I feel like it. The solution to my problem will come sooner or later, usually when I'm not stressing myself out about it. I'm going to miss it.

The best thing is that Med-X will always be there for me when I need it. It's not like daytripper where I have days like this and, when I take it, I have to hope it works. Daytripper is for when things are pretty much okay already, anyway. Med-X always works the first time no matter how bad I'm feeling beforehand. It's like having Nate come over to visit. That's the only other time that I don't really worry about my problems; I don't really worry about much of anything when he's around.

See, this is why I love Med-X. Sometimes I can only see the silver linings to my dark clouds when I can't worry about getting rained on anymore.

I know that Nate has enough of his own problems to be worried about mine. I don't really need him to, though. I can handle that if he's just around. Even before I ever left Boston, just knowing that I'd see him at some point in the day would get me through...for the most part. As bad as things got, I was never really alone before I left for college. I hated feeling like I was always running to him with some kind of a problem for him to solve. When I did, though, he dropped everything to hear what I had to say and then made it a point to have something to say himself. They weren't the kinds of problems that have obvious solutions but, if nothing else, he would at least be appropriately worked up when he agreed with me that someone was being an asshole.

Having someone that I knew was there for me numbed the pain enough to stop worrying about it. It still bothered me but it didn't keep me up at night anymore. It was always hard to think straight when I was stuck at home, outnumbered and backed into a corner. On the days when I couldn't bring myself to go crying to him again, I'd call him and we'd spend hours talking about anything other than what was bothering me. Knowing that he was on my side was enough to let me calm down long enough to start writing journal entries so I could think things through. If I think about it, I never needed Med-X until Nate wasn't around and had his own problems to deal with.

I got through the day before and, with Nate around, I think I can do it again. It's not like I'm in high school anymore; I'm not back in that house and being treated like something someone is trying to scrape off of the soles of their shoes. I'm going to be there because I want to be. I'm going to be there with Nate, finally able to help him the way that he's always helped me. Between Med-X and the journal, I'm managing right now. Between Nate and the journal, I'll manage when I get there.


	5. 24 February 2077, 15:02

I was in a beautiful haze for a day and a half straight. Basically, that means that I overdid it. A day and a half passed and at no point was I not high. I passed out a few times but there was always a tourniquet and another dose waiting for me. I didn't realize that I'd fucked up until I was picking up the last syringe and felt that telltale wave of panic. It's the only bad thing I can feel when Med-X is keeping me calm.

I was in an intimate relationship with my just-in-case bucket for a couple of days while the Fixer was working but it didn't get hard until that was over. Even feeling sick is a distraction from going back out into the world. All I had was the usual wine and Daytripper that weren't working and made me want the Med-X in the first place. It feels like swimming in a pool, happy to be floating but wanting something a little different. You get out to get into a hot tub. You're floating again but it feels better this time. Everything around you is warm and comforting. It's all wrapped around you like a blanket. Then the time comes to get out of the hot tub. The air feels cold now and all you can think about is getting back into the hot tub. You try to ignore it and it doesn't fucking work, surprising absolutely nobody. You try to distract yourself by getting back into the pool. You're still floating, so it doesn't exactly feel bad. It's just impossible to not notice that the pool doesn't feel as good as it did before. The swimming pool feels as cold as the air and the fun of it feels kind of hollow now. It's still better than getting out and not floating at all but it gets harder by the second to not think about getting back into the hot tub.

I still don't regret any of it, though. It was only a day and a half but it bought me some time. I needed that time to force the world to reset at the same time as I did. It's always me against the world and Med-X puts us both on even ground. I can step outside of the world for a little while and I don't have to deal with it if I don't want to. If the world can't come crashing down on me—even for a day and a half—I have time to recover. I can think about how to come at my problems another way, I can think about how to keep from getting overwhelmed the next time or I can just not think. I mostly went with that last one this time. The answers I need usually come to me sooner or later, anyway; my problems usually aren't complicated as much as impossible to deal with. Chopping off your own finger isn't difficult but it sure as hell isn't the kind of thing that you're liable to have an easy time doing sober.

That's what going back to Boston is. It's cutting off a part of me and throwing it away.

I got over the Fixer just in time. Nate finally called today. Because of the last few days, I was ready for it. I've spent the last few days preparing myself for it. Well, "preparing" is the best word I have for it, at least. I've mostly just been sticking to my liquid diet while I make preparations for the move. I've been making calls, getting ready to end the lease on my apartment and calling moving services to get all of my shit across the country. It didn't really take very long if you add it all up but I couldn't make more than one call at a time. I could back off and not deal with it for a while or I could call my dealer to give me something to help me force my way through it all at once. There wasn't much of a choice to make there.

I was taking notes the entire time to have a list of things to tell Nate that I've been doing to get a head start on countering whatever argument he has for telling me that he changed his mind about the whole thing. I hate to play mind games with him but this is too important to let his pride get in the way of it. I know that he wouldn't if it meant taking the work that I've done and throwing it back in my face.

Surprisingly, I didn't have to do any of that. It feels like I got off light but, at the same time, it feels like a bad omen.

When I talked to him, he was talking about everything other than the move at first. Making small talk is what he always does when he's in an uncomfortable situation, which means that it's as much of a good sign as it is a bad one. it means that he's not ignoring what's happening but, at the same time, he's still not okay with it. It's not like I expect him to be okay; even if I'm there to help, he's got a world of shit to deal with and I can only do so much about it. If he's pushing himself along, though, it means that he's not giving up. That's the most important thing. This has all hit him harder than anything that he's ever had to deal with; as strong as he is, everybody has a limit. I've been worried that this might be his.

There was something still bothering me, though. He knows that I can't stand small talk. When he does it with me, it's always an act of desperation. He talks to me the same way that he talks to anyone else; news, sports, weather. Talking like a news anchor usually gets him through social situations. I guess that's why I'm not any good at it and just tell people to go fuck themselves. He sounded a bit off today, though. I'm just chalking one up to what he's going through just to keep from having a new problem to deal with but, at first, all he was talking about was the news. Not just the top story like usual, though. He was talking about the war. It took damn near half an hour for him to start talking about anything else. What made it weird was that he was talking about it like it was still going on. I suppose that it technically is but, ever since Anchorage last month, it seems like it's pretty much over. The country is still pretty well fucked—and will be for a long time—but China has pretty much been on the run. It's just a matter of time until some papers get signed and everybody gets on with their lives. One or two years until businesses run out of excuses to keep price gouging, four or five years until somebody builds memorials, ten years until we have some documentaries and maybe a new holiday and twenty years until everybody in office is far enough out of it for it to be safe for people to find out how all of this shit really started in the first place.

Business as usual.

Nate doesn't agree. He didn't come out and say it but he talked about the war like it's a long way from over. I guess that it's never really over until somebody in a suit signs a piece of paper saying what they're going to give up for losing but I get the feeling that wasn't what he was getting at. I'm still not really clear on what he did in the army since he wasn't supposed to talk about it but I know that he knows more about what's going on than what they say on the news. It was the news about the virus research leak that seemed to have him so bothered. Some government research facility decides that it's moving day and I guess they dropped some papers or something on the way. I've heard some people talking about it but if I wanted to listen to people yapping all day in spite of not having any idea what the fuck they were talking about, I could've gotten an office job.

I don't know what any of it really means in the grand scheme of things and I'm pretty sure that if Nate did, he'd have told me. In the end, all he really said was that he didn't think that the virus research was anything to do with starting the New Plague, which seems to be the prevailing theory at the moment. I guess that whether or not that means anything depends on how much you value what "they" think. While I wouldn't put it past the government to be making the same biological weapons that they've been accusing China of making, something about the way Nate was talking about it made it seem like he was saying what he did because he thought it was true more than because he was doing his duty and being patriotic.

I can't even guess at what it might mean either way. I've never had the patience to try to keep up with conspiracy theories. To be honest, I started fading out on the conversation with Nate a little bit when he started talking about something that he read in the last edition of Coping With Mr. Virus! that he got his hands on. It's not like I would know anything about any of this, anyway; even taking conspiracy theories out of the equation, I don't keep up with the news any more than I have to. I don't have the patience to hear the details when it all amounts to the same shit that happened yesterday with slightly different wording. The only thing that I consider significant about any of it is the fact that Nate thinks enough of it to bring it up. He's never been one to follow conspiracy theories, either.

The most important thing to me about all of this is that it's giving him something to do other than sit around all day and think about Carrie. Even if he's worried about all of this, at least he's talking. All of this talk about what the government may or may not be up to is more than I've gotten out of him since he called me a few days ago so I'm taking it as a good sign. In fact, it's actually fortunate. Whatever it is, it has him so worked up that he said that he wants me in Boston as soon as possible. He didn't go into details but he said that if I'm going to be doing any traveling, he would rather that I did it now instead of later. I'm wondering if this is just his way of saying that he needs some help sooner rather than later. He's got the daycare to take care of Shaun while he's at work but it still can't be easy.

Speaking of things that aren't easy, I need to hurry to Boston.

I don't expect the government to release any plagues in the near future but I do want to get this trip over with. Right now, it's just looming over my head; getting on a plane and getting there is going to be like ripping a bandage off of a wound. I don't want to drag it out. Fortunately, I've been doing most of that just to have some shit to tell Nate that I was doing to keep him from changing his mind. It's going to cost me a fortune to break my lease but I can manage it. The moving men will be here whenever I call them to start packing everything I'm taking into a truck, which isn't much. I've never been one for collecting things so the only things I actually care about taking all fit into a few boxes. I was just going to sell the furniture since I don't have any idea how long I'll be gone but Nate told me that he'd rent some storage for it before I thought to bring it up. I'm guessing that the fact that this stay is indefinite occurred to him, too. It was such a nice gesture that I didn't bother bringing up how much it would cost to ship and store all of it. I spent the last couple of days wrapping up the modules I was working on for my client while the Fixer was running its course so I have time to spend a day packing and another in airports. I can use Nate's terminal to get back to work when I get there so I won't even have to worry about waiting for the moving truck to show up. The only other major problem that I'd potentially have is trying to find a place to stay but even that isn't an issue.

Everything is tied up so nicely and neatly...and all in a matter of hours. It makes me sick.

The fact that everything is wrapping up so cleanly is equal parts blessing and curse. I'm glad that it's not complicated but I don't like the fact that throwing my entire life away is so easy. It makes it feel like it wasn't worth anything to begin with. I know that's not true; it means the world to me. Literally. I can find everything that means anything to me aside from Nate on this side of my front door. It really is my whole world. More important than that, it's mine. Ever since I left Boston, everything I did was to carve out a little spot in the world for myself where I might actually find something like peace. Somewhere along the way, I actually found it. Being able to tie up all of the loose ends and ship it somewhere else as luggage feels like pissing on everything that I worked for.

That's not true, either. I'd better stop thinking about it; I don't have another half of a week to go on a binge and bounce back from it.

The only thing holding me up is trying to figure out what to do with my car...sort of. I suppose that it's already been decided that I'm just going to get rid of it. I thought about just taking it with me and deciding later but it would cost more to get it across the country than everything else I own put together. I've already burned through most of my savings after sending money to Nate and making arrangements to leave; if I'm not careful, I won't have anything left to help out before my paycheck from this job comes in. Even if I drove it myself, it would cost about the same as having it shipped. Coolant prices have been going through the roof because of the shortages and it doesn't look like it's going to stop anytime soon. Even regular is damn near eight thousand dollars a gallon here. It's just as well since Nate shot that idea down pretty fast, anyway; something about not wanting me on the roads until things blow over. I didn't want to get into another conversation about the government so I just agreed. He'd know better than I would, anyway. It's not as if any of it really matters since I won't need it when I get there. You don't need a car to get around in Boston any more than you really need one in Portland. Even if you did, Nate has one of his own. I don't really care the car in the first place. I barely even drive it because the coolant is so damn expensive. On top of that, I wouldn't mind having the money just in case times get tight before my paycheck comes in. The only attachment I have to it is that it's the last thing keeping me here.

I'm going to make my load a little lighter and finish off one more bottle of wine, then I'm going to rip this goddamn bandage off.


	6. 25 February 2077, 19:17

It wasn't just small talk. Nate is actually worried.

I knew that talking about conspiracy theories was out of character for him. I just didn't give it any thought. I should've known that it was too big of an issue for it to be a good idea to ignore it, though. It's not just that it's out of character for him; it's the exact opposite of what I'd call normal behavior. We used to sit around and laugh about shit like this. If he was having a rough day, I'd call him to cheer him up and tell him about whatever new crazy bullshit that somebody on a message board knew for a fact that the army was doing. Controlling people's minds with power lines, creating an army of super soldier clones, building robots that can see the future...there was always something new and it got a laugh out of him every time.

Now, he's just quiet whenever it comes up. When I was talking to him today, he went quiet at least three times. When I finally asked him what he was doing, he said that he was taking notes. I didn't notice it until he told me but I could hear the news in the background. This is the kind of shit that we used to always laugh about and say that creepy people living in someone's basement would do with their free time while wearing tin foil hats and popping Mentats to help them connect the dots. I'm pretty sure he wasn't selling because he knew that I wasn't buying, though. He never had anything to say about any of it unless I asked him directly and, even then, I usually just got a summary. The only thing I didn't have to push him to be vocal about was the fact that he's adamant about being careful on my way there. He insisted that I take a non-stop flight to Boston because he doesn't want me on the ground any more than I have to be.

When this first came up, I was hoping that it would be a distraction for him. I figured that it would just be something to keep his mind off of Carrie and we'd eventually just laugh about it like we always do. He's just going deeper down the rabbit hole, though. When I do ask him about what he thinks about it, the conversation can go on for an hour about something some senator said or some report of Chinese submarine movements and what it might mean. He even started talking about showing up for the drills again and making preparations for a worst case scenario "just in case." Whatever is going on, he's definitely convinced that the war isn't over yet.

Maybe Carrie really did finally break him.

No, I can't afford to think like that. That's probably just the wine talking but I'm calling that a win. That means that it's doing its job. More than that, it's right. I can't afford to assume the worst—even while I'm preparing for it. I'm only going because I know that he can't handle all of this on his own. If this ends up being one more thing that I have to help him through, that's fine by me. Besides, it's hardly the worst thing that could happen to him. People go through shit like this all of the time and end up a hell of a lot worse off than watching the news and taking notes. It's just one more thing that I'll have to keep an eye on when I get there.

For now, I'd probably be better off just worrying about getting there. Even with this new problem, it isn't enough to distract me from what I'm about to do...not entirely. I'm less than a day away from getting on that plane and spending the next seven or eight hours trying to convince flight attendants that I'm good for one more drink and hoping they aren't really counting. I'm going to be depending on them since I can't get anything harder than Daytripper on the plane without some kind of excuse. If I didn't need it at any other time, I'll need it then.

It's hard enough getting any kind of chems on a plane but Daytripper is common enough that I shouldn't have any problems as long as I don't draw any undue attention. People look at it as more of a social thing than something that's unraveling the fabric of American society, so it's pretty easy to get people to turn a blind eye to it. It's nothing that I haven't gotten away with on a plane before; I just give all of the warning signs that I'm scared of flying and the flight attendants will ignore it if they catch me popping a pill or two every so often, especially if it means that they won't have to deal with a panic attack instead of someone that's too fucked up to call them over, let alone have a fit. It makes sense. As medical emergencies go, one is far less likely, easier to dismiss with "I didn't know" if it comes up later and is easier to deal with in an airplane seat at 35,000 feet. I just have to keep quiet, not make a production of it when I open my mouth and maybe give up a few to whoever is sitting next to me so they keep quiet, too.

I just picked up my last order from my dealer to get ready for the trip. I don't like spending any more time around a dealer than I have to but it was hard to ignore that it was kind of sad to realize that I'm not going to see him again. I got over it pretty fast when I saw the look that he was giving me, though. It was an unusually large order of Daytripper and, after putting in orders for Med-X and Fixer in the last week, I can only imagine that he's sure that he's got me where he wants me. I kind of want to see the look on his face when he realizes that he's not going to hear from me again. Then again, he's probably just going to figure that I overdosed and get pissed off about having to find a new customer to replace me.

Forget what I said. I'll be glad to be rid of him.

It's not like I was surprised by any of it. It just couldn't be avoided. Too many doses of chems is the first thing to get you noticed by airport security and having too many things that look like pill bottles is a dead giveaway. They're already most likely going know what I'm doing; I don't need to give them a reason to believe that I'm going to be stupid about it or that I'm a dealer in disguise. That's how they go from thinking that you're not worth the trouble to thinking that dealing with you is less trouble than trying to convince their bosses later that they didn't know what you were up to. A single bottle should be enough, anyway. It's going to have to be packed full, though; I've got more than the flight to think about. Even after I set aside enough for the flight and a little more as hush money for whoever is in the seat next to me, I still need enough to last me when I get to Boston.

Shit. I'd almost forgotten.

I was thinking at first that the plan would be to just leave it alone after I got there. I knew when I was saying my goodbyes to my just-in-case bucket that it wasn't going to work, though. It was an easy decision to make when I was already high but, after I had come down, I was having too much trouble just trying to be awake and sober at the same time to say that I'd be able to manage that and being back in Boston at the same time. I usually couldn't care less about how I look to anybody else. That's how I first got started not going out in the first place. It was easier than having to deal with anyone's contradicting expectations. I really wanted to try to be completely sober for this, though. The part of it that I was admitting to is the only part that's still true; I don't want Nate getting the idea that this was a mistake. Also, I can't afford to fuck this up; there's a kid's life at stake, after all. If I'm honest, though, I also care what Nate thinks about me. I couldn't live with myself if I'd said that about anybody else but, considering how much he's gone through just to make sure I got through being a kid in one piece, I don't want Nate thinking that he wasted his time. I'm only barely functional but it was definitely worth the effort he put into giving a shit about me.

All of this is too much to have to deal with, though. I can't keep up with everything that's going on in my head and still have enough energy to deal with the fact that I don't have my emergency exit anymore. I'm guessing that the first few days are going to be too busy with getting settled in to take too much notice of it and learning how to take care of Shaun is going to take even more out of me than that. I doubt there's going to be enough time to worry about whether or not I'm having fun. Besides that, it isn't the sort of thing that I'd want to try while high even if I already knew what I was doing. Sooner or later, though, I'm going to have more free time than I really want. I'm not planning on taking on any new jobs until I get comfortable but, even with taking care of Shaun and making sure that Nate is doing okay, I don't expect that work is going to take up enough of my time to keep me from noticing that I'm miserable once I'm used to all of it. I want to have something tucked away for the day I finally can't take anymore.

I'm still not sure what I'm going to say to Nate when that day gets here. I'm thinking about just coming up with an excuse to take a weekend trip somewhere...maybe a business trip to meet with a client or something. He knows me well enough to see through it but I'm hoping that he also knows me well enough to know that I'm going to come back the same way I left. I don't think he thinks too harshly of my vices seeing as they're generally not anything that you couldn't buy from a store in the first place. The only reason I need to find less than reputable suppliers is the fact that you can't usually buy them in these quantities or without some kind of a prescription. The last thing I need is to turn up after a long weekend and have him questioning whether or not to let me back into his apartment. I'd had enough of that shit before I ever left Boston in the first place.

No...I'm not thinking about that now. This trip is hard enough already.

I'd better focus on the present, anyway. There's not much left to do but it all needs to go off without a hitch between now and this time tomorrow. The moving truck will be here tomorrow afternoon to start picking up my furniture, so there's a few things that still need to be packed away before then. It's mostly just my terminal but I need to make sure it's going to get there in one piece. Vacuum tubes don't exactly grow on trees and I don't have the money to pay for an "oops" or "I didn't know." I don't want to pack it any earlier than I have to just in case I need it, though. I already know that tomorrow is going to be a hard day that gets worse the closer it gets to my flight time.

Speaking of which, there's not much time between the time the moving truck shows up and the time that I have to be leaving for the airport. Nate told me that I need to get there early and expect security to be tighter than usual with everything that's going on. I might not be comfortable with his new hobby but he's not one for paranoid delusions. I don't expect it to be a problem for me but I need to be ready just in case somebody gets curious about my little medicine cabinet. I'd better make sure I have those fake prescriptions ready. I normally wouldn't bother just because it really isn't worth the risk of catching a felony charge but, since I'm already going to have one in my purse, anyway, it's really a feast or famine kind of situation. Not that it doesn't make me feel like shit to risk fucking all of this up when I'm on my way to help Nate when he needs me most but I'm not going to be any good to him if I go all the way there just to have a nervous breakdown. I don't doubt that he'd try to take care of me but the whole reason that I'm going is because he's not in a position to take care of himself, let alone the both of us.

I'd better stop and back up a step or two.

I can already feel a panic attack and one more "one last call" to my dealer coming on. I need to be careful; as far as my nerves are concerned, tomorrow is already here. Time to focus on just the facts. Even if Nate is right and security is tight, they're looking for terrorists and spies, not bad habits. This is nothing that I haven't done before when I had to take an actual business trip. As long as my dress is expensive enough and my attitude is haughty enough, they won't give me a second glance. Those types are always packing something away and convinced that there's nothing wrong with it because they're the ones doing it. They always get waved through just because dealing with their lawyers is more trouble than it's worth. I just need to get there early so I'm not looking like I'm in a hurry to get through security. Also, I can't be high already when I get there. That's going to be the difficult one. You can't look nervous or twitchy, either, which isn't something I'm good at doing when I'm sober. I should be fine as long as I drive it home that I'm "scared to fly." I'm not good at it but I'm well aware that getting by in situations like this mostly requires just not looking like you don't belong. Things like the intent to distribute are pretty subjective as long as you're not in a courtroom yet. All I need to do is focus on getting on the plane. Then I just need to focus on timing my yawns with my pills. Then I just need to focus on getting to Nate.

If I can get that far, the rest will work itself out somehow, anyway.


End file.
